


Truth is a Beautiful Thing

by space_mermaid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gender Dysphoria, HP femslash, Harry Potter Rare Pair Bingo: Round 2, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Female Character, trans woman Marlene, trans woman Narcissa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_mermaid/pseuds/space_mermaid
Summary: "You showed me your scars. You had been through this and you had survived. I could too."
Relationships: Narcissa Black Malfoy/Marlene McKinnon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Harry Potter Rare Pair Bingo: Round Two!





	Truth is a Beautiful Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the beautiful London Grammar song by the same name, and the Contrapoints youtube video "Shame". Also kudos to Maria_de_Salinas who introduced me to this pairing.

Could you take my place and stand here?  
I do not think you'd take this pain  
You'll be on your knees and struggle under the weight  
Oh, the truth would be a beautiful thing  
\- _Truth is a Beautiful Thing_ by London Grammar

The soles of my feet wore away to raw flesh. I had been walking for such a very long time. The weight of my shame dogged each step and burned acrid in my throat. I was all alone in my torment, a landscape of burnt forest smoking and dead. I was dying too. Slowly. Bits of me withering to ash as I dragged myself ever onwards through a harsh world. 

Externally, I played my parts. Said the right words in the right places, just duplicating what I saw the lads do. No one looked too hard, and so I stayed invisible. Disappearing. 

I don’t know how you saw me. You had trod the same path years before, so maybe you recognised the limp in my gait. Understood the distance in my eyes. 

Tentatively you approached me. Crouched down and spoke gently, as if assuaging a wounded rabbit. I would not show you my wounds. To reveal vulnerability was a death sentence. I suppose I still had some skerrick of self-preservation remaining. 

So you showed me your scars. You had been through this and you had survived. I could too. 

And oh, Narcissa. You had me in the palm of your hand. With this slightest of kindnesses, I unfurled and let you tend my wounds. 

You showed me the way to the garden, and I ate of the forbidden fruit. Just as everyone was else was becoming an adult, I started at square one again. Clumsily, hopefully, I bloomed. And I hoped. 

…

Friendship between us was acceptable. Just two Pureblood witches dancing at socials, going out for tea, getting our hair done. Picture perfect. That’s what everyone saw. 

But the memories that play like a Muggle movie in my mind are those behind tall oak doors, glowing in candle light, against tapestry hung walls. When you would sit just a smidgen too close for propriety and smile at me like I was the sun. When we would talk til our voices were hoarse. Whispering secrets into each other’s ears. 

Nights when we would lean over the balcony and stare at the stars. The flash of a lighter reflected in your whirlpool eyes, trading a cigarette back and forth. And I would thank a god I didn’t believe in for creating you. And even for creating me. So strange. Before we met, I had cursed the day that I had been born. But in the cold midwinter air, I had never felt so warm as when I stood with you. 

…

Plunged into an icy lake, I watched you kiss him. Your fiancé, your assurance of legitimacy. 

You had to be too perfect for your own good. You learnt the lines until it almost seemed natural, not a performance at all. You would marry a good Pureblood man because that was what perfect Pureblood witches did. At the top of the social pyramid, no one could take the crown of womanhood away from you. 

The ring on your finger glinted tauntingly over crossed arms. The lines between your eyebrows deepened harshly when I asked you if you loved him. Voice cracked like shattered glass that caught in my throat. Love was irrelevant, you assured me. It was a perfect match. 

Though cut, I couldn’t hold my tongue. Couldn’t stop the confession tumbling like translucent marbles all over the carpet. All my feelings, messy and painful and deep, my dreams for us, golden and bright and sweet. Kicked aside like animal droppings. 

You wouldn’t look me in the eye. Your lip curled and your voice shook as you shrank me so small. You would never so abase yourself as to be with me. 

I bled for days. When I thought the agony could get no worse, I received your owl. A Malfoy insignia sealed-envelope, gold leafed parchment. A request asking me to be your bridesmaid. I will never understand how the human heart can hold so much pain. 

I watched your letter incinerate to cauterise the wound. 

…

I thought by joining the Order, putting a battleground of distance between us, that I would let go. I knew you were wrong, about so many things, but especially about this. I should have hated you. 

What would have happened, if we had duelled? Could you have killed me? I would have let you, if only you would have held my hand. Cupped my face as the light faded from my eyes. Let tears fall as you told me you loved me. 

I could never have hurt you. No matter what you did, deep in my core you had a throne. 

…

The last time I saw you, your face appeared in my fireplace. You had been drinking and you spoke to me like there was no war, like it hadn’t been years. Spend the night with me, you pleaded. Your husband was gone and you were oh so lonely. 

Though I felt sick with the weight of it, I considered betraying the cause, betraying myself. I couldn’t be who I wanted with you, but to lie with you… It was something I would have once killed for. Maybe I could put down my burden for one night. Even if it were a trap, a single kiss would be worth it. 

I would never have done this to you. Struggling under the weight of your own self-deception, you crawled back to the trash you had discarded. Pretending that it was all okay, just like you would pretend in the light of day that you had never cared for me. 

I doused the flames and blocked the Floo. The truth would be a beautiful thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to read your comments.


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